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A hundredth ...

Posted by R. Berg on December 01, 2007

In Reply to: A hundredth ... posted by RRC on November 30, 2007

: : : : Could you please find the meaning of the following proverb 'A hundredth of the goldsmith to one stroke of the ironsmith'?

: : : By Googling, I can't find anything resembling that. Logically, I'm not sure about the TH in hundredTH.
: : : If it is meant to be: A hundred strokes of the goldsmith to one stroke of the ironsmith, then I think it would refer to the goldsmith working with soft gold in tiny taps of a miniature hammer while the ironsmith strikes a hard metal with mighty blows of a massive hammer.

: : As far as I know, "A hundred (or hundredth)..." isn't a proverb or any kind of traditional saying in English. ~rb

: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that it was, but I can see how I gave that impression. I was just trying to make a guess at the meaning from the words of the sentence. As I said, just googling on the distinctive words in different combinations, not even in order, didn't find anything like this.

RRC, I didn't mean that you implied it was traditional. I was informing the original poster, who called it a proverb. ~rb

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